We'll continue in this thread where we left off the previous one. Thanks to all who are participating in this novena - even if tenuously. Those who want to join in should feel welcome to do so. Those who are slacking off please do your best to persevere.

There are graces in this novena. You will grow closer to God through devotion to his Blessed Mother.

The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who fills the whole universe, passes through all believing, meek, humble, good, and simple human souls, dwelling in them, vivifying and strengthening them. He becomes one spirit with them and everything to them - light, strength, peace, joy, success in their undertakings, especially in a pious life, and everything good - "going through all understanding, pure and most subtle spirits" (Wisdom of Solomon vii, 23). "We have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (I Cor. xii.13). All pious people are filled with the Spirit of God similarly as a sponge is filled with water.

- St. John of Kronstadt, "My Life in Christ"

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all "fulness of blessing," both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment.

This is from an earlier Novena on CM. I found it helpful, so would like to share it:

We can start each Rosary with this prayer (optional):

O
Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary, I thank you for your maternal
protection, and for the many blessings I have received through your
powerful intercession.

Blessed Mother you asked at Fatima for the
daily recitation of the Rosary for peace in the world and in individual
souls. I offer my Rosary as a spiritual "Bouquet of Roses" for the
intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in atonement for the offenses
committed against your Immaculate Heart, and in petition for the favors I
ask in this Novena.

(List your petitions and those of all others
who joined this Novena here. You can use the list of participants and
read each person's name ... "and for the intentions of Allen, Andrea,
Angie, etc.")

With great confidence in your powerful intercession,
I place these petitions in your hands, and beseech you to present them
to Jesus. He will never refuse what you ask Him.

For the days in Thanksgiving, you may change the wording a little to change from petition to thanksgiving.

Please ask your family and friends if they would like to
participate. Let me know and I will add their names to the list of
participants so we can all pray for each other! You may join at any time, including after the novena has begun.

"When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, (as is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord.") and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: a pair of doves or two young pigeons." Luke 2:22-24

Let this mystery teach us obedience.

It's rather humorous to read that paragraph. Mary and Joseph took the Lord to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord! The Lord presented Himself to Himself!

The Father demanded no special treatment for His Son. No exceptions, no favoritism. The Law of Moses was the Law and the Law was to be obeyed. God was not about to break His own rules. He came to fulfill the Law, not toss the Law out the window. He came to live our human experience is every single way that we do, including obeying the law.

But notice, please, which law we're talking about here. God's law - the law that is always just and right and good. We needn't ever worry when obeying God's law. It will always be for our benefit and His greater glory. Obeying God's law will never steer us wrong or lead us down a destructive path. God's blessing is always in His law.

We live in the age of the slogan. Advertisers are constantly placing before us words that play upon our desire that life be more than it is. A candy wrapper tells us, "Be yourself"; the ad for a women's clothing store tells us, "Dare to dream"; the coffee shop window declares, "Hope, Believe." But what happens when things go wrong? How do we continue to hope and dream and believe when life hands us disappointment, rejection, poverty? Suddenly, the ad speak is revealed for what it is: an ephemeral cloud of good feeling that fades as quickly as the chocolate drop on the tongue. We must be made for more than this! In the Gospels, Jesus tells us what we must do: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you..." Ask, seek, knock - this is not the fluff stuff of Fifth Avenue ad copy, the warm fuzzy of a chocolate drop or a new pair of jeans. Jesus exhorts us to press past penultimate answers, the trapping of our materiality, to meet him. He is the one who addresses us every day in every circumstance - the bad and the good, the distressing and the beautiful.